


Habitual Hatred

by a-blog-against-team-cap (MyaAni)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Exvengers, Gen, NO ONE KNOWS, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Rogue Avengers, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Wanda Maximoff Critical, maybe a one-shot? maybe more chapters?, not team Cap friendly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 11:25:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14043240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyaAni/pseuds/a-blog-against-team-cap
Summary: She never could quite put her finger on when hating Stark became more of a habit than anything.





	Habitual Hatred

**Author's Note:**

> Yo! This has a bit of self hatred, so if you are not a fan of that/are triggered by that, I would advise you not to read this.
> 
> I feel like Wanda has been set up as a villain in a lot of ways in the MCU, and hasn't really ever redeemed herself, or even thought twice. Usually I stay in line with that portrayal, and show her as the cold, evil one in most of my writing, but I decided I would write something along the lines of "What if Wanda realized how horrible she's been?" So I did. This took ~forever~ because I suck, but here it is!

She never could quite put her finger on when hating Stark became more of a habit than anything. When trading degrading comments became almost a guilty pleasure. She would still let loose slews of insults, the sentiments burying themselves further into Steve and Clint’s hearts, even as they worked their way out of hers. It had been a way to reflect her own insecurities, her fear of the monstrosity she felt that she hid within onto someone else. It pleased her to point out everyone’s flaws, as a foil to noticing her own. It was all of that, until the day when she realized that it simply wasn’t.  
  
They had been in Wakanda for about half of the year, and nothing in particular had changed, except her. They were kept in a wing of the Wakandan castle. While Steve and the others protested initially, several arguments with the newly crowned king had persuaded them it wasn't worth it to try to leave. Nothing was different.  
  
Stark was the same person, the Accords were the same thing. She just didn’t care as much. Stark seemed like such a lesser evil than everything else in their world by then. The time, and the distance gave her not perspective, per se, but at least a kind of appreciation for his efforts. Even after the Civil War, he was trying to bring the Rogue Avengers back to the right side of the law. Previously, when she was feared only quietly, before the so-called “war,” she had thought that he was awful. The scum at the bottom of the barrel, definitely not worthy of being an Avenger. The mere mention of his name would set her fingers sparking. Now, however, she simply remembered the events distantly with vague apathy towards him, and all involved. 

Then came a day where, once again, Steve and Clint were exchanging their usual disparaging comments regarding Stark. Wanda reached inside of herself for an insult to hurl at Tony, and found only emptiness. Before she had felt a chasm of fire burning within her filled with spite and hatred. But by now that well had long dried up. Where that burning rage and those spiteful comments had once resided, now there was only a hollow soul.  
  
When she failed to find a hurtful comment, she was forced to keep quiet. Steve and Clint continued their banter, oblivious to her slight discomfort. Scott shuffled through the doorway, posture hunched with the look of a man who had long-ago given up. He had spent all of the time in Wakanda regretting his choices, and missing his daughter, and somewhere along the line, a few weeks in, he had just stopped caring.  
  
For him, today would be nothing but another in a never-ending string of meaningless days. Nothing was new. Nothing was different. Steve and Clint were the same belligerent fools they had been the day before, and the same that they would be the day after. Scott stopped when he saw the daily Stark-trashing-fest and turned away to leave, rolling his eyes. Before he could even move an inch, though, his path was blocked by Sam’s appearance.  
  
“You might want to turn on the TV,” Sam’s grim exterior sent a chill down Wanda’s spine. He seemed all too solemn, all too sudden. This was the man who spent all of his time wise-cracking, filling the silence with banter because it was too uncomfortable to bear. To see him perturbed, shook her to the core. Wordlessly, she picked up the remote and pressed the power button, leaving her face cold, blank, and impassive. The screen flickered to life from across the room, and as she began to turn up the volume, even Steve and Clint stopped their laughing and usual banter.  
  
They saw Stark arrive in Siberia. They saw him extend an offer of peace, of cooperation. They watched as they found Zemo, and they saw the video begin to play. They stared in a broken silence as the Winter Soldier knocked out Tony’s father, and wrapped his fingers around his mother’s throat. The footage cut back to Stark as he launched himself at Bucky, only to be pulled back by Steve. Wanda winced, feeling Stark’s pain as if it were her own. She knew that pain, the anguish of seeing your loved ones perish.  
  
“Tony. Tony.” Steve whispered. Stark looked at him.  
  
“Did you know?” His eyes glistened with tears, and even Wanda could tell that he was too broken, too far gone.  
  
Steve swallowed hard and answered, “I didn’t know it was him.” Wanda stared in disbelief at that awful, evasive answer. Steve wasn’t supposed to be like this, he wasn’t supposed to be in the wrong.  
  
Stark looked at him blankly and rasped, “Don’t bullshit me, Rogers. Did you know?” The dead look in his eyes mirrored how Wanda’s had appeared for so long. Dead, dying, and in such deep pain.  
  
Steve glanced away, breaking eye contact, and uttered a single confirmation, “Yes.” Even with all of those years of hating Stark behind her, Wanda felt a that word send a bullet through her soul. Stark had been betrayed, tenfold, by one that he called a friend, one that supposedly was always right. He stepped backwards, jerking his chin up twitchily, and re-engaging his helmet. He took a swing at Steve and knocked him over, then heaved himself at Bucky. The video ends, and the television cuts suddenly into the middle of a typical lunch-time TV segment.  


  
Steve stuttered, “Why would Tony release that footage?”  
  
Clint followed, “Why would he even want to film it?”  


Wanda surprised herself by raising her voice, “How could he film it?” Her Sokovian accent came in stronger as her annoyance increased. “He didn’t know the base existed until Sam told him about it.” She whirled around, hair flaring in a dramatic circle, and almost ran out the door. Once she was past their line of eyesight, she broke into a full sprint, desperate to get to her room before she broke down entirely. She flew around the corner and nearly fell through her door. Once through she reached out with her powers to slam it shut, and clicked the lock.  
  
It was then that she broke down crying. She had despised him for so long, and now she realized that Tony was just like her. He had to watch his parents die. She knew how much that hurt. She knew what it was like to cry out for mom and dad, and never hear an answer. She had spent those two days calling for her Mala, for her Dapa, and receiving only silence. Stark had done the same thing. And when he found out, he was standing right next to their killer. She had sat there for days, staring at his name printed on that bomb, blaming him for her parents’ deaths. He had stood there and seen the Soldier’s face as he watched his parents’ brutal murder.  
  
And when he had attacked… he could have killed them both. Without a doubt.. Wanda has observed the missiles he had in his suit, if he had been trying, it would’ve been like a child trying to fight a fully armed tank. That weaponry could have effortlessly destroyed targets far tougher than a couple of super soldiers. But he didn’t even think about killing them.  
  
That was so much better than she did. After she saw her parents die, she joined a group of Nazis just to get a chance at revenge, and then helped Ultron try to destroy the world. Destroy the world, all because destroying the world would mean destroying Stark, and she thought that destroying Stark would mean justice. And she only stopped once she realized that destroying the world would destroy her too.  


Now she sobbed, thinking of how many times she called him a monster, how many times she blamed him, cursed his name, when in reality, she was so much worse. Sending the Hulk rampaging through Johannesburg, working for Hydra… Even when she was supposedly good, she was tearing the team apart, just to get at Tony.  
  
Ultron was her fault. Stark was the one who wanted to build him, yes. But she had made him afraid. She had made him lose his mind. She had shown him his friends lying dead, telling him that it was his fault. She had taken his PTSD and his anxiety and played it like a flute, manipulating him into creating the monster that was Ultron. But then, without any help from her, the Avengers dismissed her role in his creation, and Banner’s. They chose to blame only Stark. He was an easy target. He had so much, so they assumed he needed to brought down. She had naturally slipped into the infighting, fueled by her incendiary bitterness. And when she watched them tear Stark apart, she was jubilant in her success.  


Then, she had followed Captain Rogers into battle against Stark, delighting in his pain, but also oh-so-afraid. It was fun for her, being able to justifiably attack Stark. But if Captain Rogers was wrong about the Accords, he could just as easily have been wrong about her. Rogers had trusted her enough to make her an Avenger, even after all she had done. He had chosen her, and sidelined Stark to be a consultant once again, confirming to her that Stark was the monster among them. So she had thought the captain had to have been right about this too. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have known what to think. And she felt guilty for letting those people in Lagos die, sure, but at the time, fear had gripped her, and she was convinced that they would come for her, and she would be locked away, alone. Again.  
  
But now, seeing Barton and Rogers be assholes everyday, and then seeing press releases of Stark, fighting every day to bring all of the Rogue Avengers home, she has lost that fearful devotion to the Captain. And she knows then that whatever consequences she receives, she has earned tenfold, and none of it could ever be enough. She’s killed, and she’s been part of an terrorist organization, and she helped Ultron try to destroy the world, and she failed to do enough, and she pushed a man so far he broke, then walked all over him. The cherry on top is that she was in the U.S. for two years without a visa. But she’s never been held accountable for any of it. Whatever happens, she deserved it. She knew what was necessary now, and she would do it, even if it made her situation worse.

She walked through the common area, brushing past Sam, and patting Scott on the shoulder as he sat there listlessly, staring off into empty space. She stepped through the door frame and caught the attention of the woman, one of the Dora Milaje, who was standing guard. Easing the door closed behind her, she took a deep breath.  
  
Quietly, she begun, “I was wondering if I could access the Accords? I’d like to read them.” The Dora Milaje nodded and beckoned her silently, and they walked at a brisk pace through the winding corridors until they ended up in a room that was simultaneously clean and cluttered. It looked like a Wakandan equivalent of the lab that Stark spent so much time in. A girl, younger than even Wanda, glanced up from a piece of circuitry.  
  
The Dora Milaje crossed her arms over her chest then dropped them to her sides in what Wanda had come to recognize as some sort of salute. “Princess Shuri, Wanda Maximoff wishes to read the Accords.”  
  
The princess spun her chair around.“Finally! One of them pulled their head from their ass,” She grinned personably. Wanda cringed. She didn’t deserve a positive reaction for doing what she should have done from the beginning, taking accountability for what a monster she had become. The princess seemed to notice how uncomfortable she was, and so she moved on after an awkward pause, “T’Challa told me to help anyone who asked read the Accords. They’re just a little dense. I don’t think he expected it to be this long.”  
  
“They’re all stubborn asses, this is the right thing to do. Even if Rogers had a point, we went about it the wrong way, and by doing so proved the necessity of it,” I just hate that it took this long for me to realize it, she silently continued.  
  
“Okay. Let’s get started.” Shuri pulled up a hologram of what appeared to a very long document.

 

Several hours later, Shuri flopped down on the floor, “I forgot how annoyingly precise these were,” she muttered, groaning.  
  
Wanda laid down next to her, “Why are lawyers like this?” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes in exhaustion.  
  
“They don’t want smart-morons like Captain Rogers slipping through their net.”  
  
“I concede the point. Can I go ahead and sign these? I don’t want to slog through the rest of this.”  
  
“No! Never sign something without reading it. Especially something as important as this, especially given the severity of the punishment if you break them.”  
  
“I’d be back in the Raft,” Wanda’s voice was barely a whisper, and she couldn’t refrain from a shiver as she remembered the awful feeling of her magic being forced down.  
  
“No, actually.” Shuri’s voice was upbeat, “The Raft isn’t in the Accords. General Ross is scheduled for a trial for putting you guys in there.”  
  
“Really?” Wanda was unable to keep the surprise out of her voice. They deserved that place. They had beaten a man when he was down. She had dropped sixteen cars on someone who considered her at least a co-worker, if not a friend.  
  
“Yep,” Shuri pulled the hologram above where they were on the floor, “Here. If we look at it this way, at least it’s more comfortable.” As they went over clauses about appropriate methods to go about securing permission to enter and operate in a country, Wanda’s heart felt lighter than it had in years, being finally unburdened by rage and guilt. She was finally making amends, and removing herself from the monster she had been.

**Author's Note:**

> Should I add more chapters of trial, and Wanda ending up with New Avengers, or whatever else this story might have to say, or is it good here? Let me knooooow!
> 
> Leave a kudos! Leave a comment! Subscribe to the work because I might add more chapters? Subscribe to me if you like my ~usage of language~
> 
> Concrit is greatly encouraged. Also if anyone wants to beta future works of mine, say something, because I could use it, and idk how that works so...
> 
> It got worse as it went because I got bored with last minute editing so I just skimmed the ending and said it was fine. Sorry 'bout that.


End file.
